


Nevermind

by DestinedForJohnlock



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Suicidal Thoughts, Warnings May Change, neuroprober!Sherlock, nevermind, patient!John
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 05:13:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1182336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestinedForJohnlock/pseuds/DestinedForJohnlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John can't cope with civilian life after being discharged and admits himself to a psychiatric hospital after a failed suicide attempt. When traditional treatment for a soldier who isn't exactly haunted by the war doesn't appear to work, he's referred to a program that allows a certain consulting detective inside his head. Literally. Please read the tags for any warnings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you [elderawesome](http://elderawesome.tumblr.com) for the inspiration.

First off, thank you. 

Second, as some of you may have seen, there's a post on Tumblr going around about the game Nevermind. [This post](http://mypandemonium.tumblr.com/post/75975070052/attention-tumblr-gamers) is the most informational one I've seen on it, but there's also an [official site](http://www.nevermindgame.com/Nevermind_Kickstarter/Nevermind__The_Game.html) and [kickstarter program](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/reynoldsphobia/nevermind-a-biofeedback-horror-adventure-game?ref=prefundia&utm_source=Prefundia+Followers+%232&utm_campaign=9b9943cc1c-10_22_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1ec9fc3ce4-9b9943cc1c-91465281) with more information. You can even watch someone play through the first beta level [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY6cL3KZQUI), [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69TyMvd_Lg4), and [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q7mg_CGMGc). Just don't watch it at night if you want to sleep. I recommend reading and watching the information from those sources to get an understanding of the background and theme of this fic.

Basically, it's a biofeedback game. You play as a "neuroprober" to delve into a patient's mind and weed out the false memories from the true ones to help them get to the root of their problems and start recovering accordingly. As you're going through a patient's mind, you're faced with various stressors and spooks. Along with the gameplay, there's a band you wear around your chest that measures your heart rate. The faster your heart beats as you grow anxious or frightened, the harder the game becomes. In order to proceed and stay in a patient's mind, you must calm yourself in the face of fear. It's a fascinating concept that helps you learn to deal with stressors and spooks in real life. Neat, huh?

As the summary says, this is an AU where John isn't able to cope with civilian life after the military and admits himself to a psychiatric hospital after a failed suicide attempt. It's there that he meets Sherlock, who keeps his title as consulting detective but with an added medical license that allows for "neuroprobing." I won't go into logistics here, the characters and their roles are clear throughout (I hope). 

There are mentions of suicidal thoughts, it will be graphic, there is violence, and if I play my cards right I hope to creep some of you out.

I urge you all to [help fundraise for this game](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/reynoldsphobia/nevermind-a-biofeedback-horror-adventure-game?ref=prefundia&utm_source=Prefundia+Followers+%232&utm_campaign=9b9943cc1c-10_22_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1ec9fc3ce4-9b9943cc1c-91465281)! Fundraising ends on March 7th of this year at 1 AM EST. As of February 13th, they're far from their goal. One dollar, great, go for it. Can you donate more? It's encouraged. Can't afford to donate? Spread the word! They can use all the help they can get!

I'll go ahead and put a disclaimer (does anyone do this anymore): I don't own Sherlock or any of its content but damn I wish I did.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Admittance.

Dealing with a traumatic event incorrectly or neglecting to acknowledge there’s a problem in the first place comes with a multitude of symptoms – ironic if one is under the impression that there isn’t an illness present – including but not limited to: difficulty functioning on a day to day basis; separation and distance from close friends and family; failure to develop new relationships; avoiding triggers; resorting to hazardous recreational activities; experiencing flashbacks or nightmares of the event; etc. The list goes on, general psych review for the newly admitted. It’s dangerous to assume the problem will go away on its own, that one does possess the ability to keep it tucked away within themselves and bury it with one distraction after another until those become a heavier burden.

John admits himself to a psychiatric ward, temporarily he tells himself, after a failed suicide attempt following his discharge and ill recovery. The pills were in his hand and the drink ready to wash them down until he could sleep. But he’s a soldier. Was, anyway. He’s better than that. A heavy hand sets the bottle down on the table and calls ahead to the nearest hospital to inform them of the coming of their new addition. They welcome him as they welcome anyone else, clinically with the dash of empathy the night staff can muster up at two in the morning.

He tells them he wants to be put on suicide watch and seen by both a therapist and psychiatrist. They comply and offer both, but not until after a few days of initiation. There are tours into various parts of the hospital he’s permitted to enter, other patients to talk with, a couple of group sessions he’s not required to attend but if it gets him to a personal therapist any faster he’s all for it. The food is terrible, their outfits are itchy, the beds are moderately comfortable if he finds the right position. It’s not a bad deal, considering.

By day four, he’s introduced to Ella, who John finds acceptable. She’s pleasant enough, to the point. Just what he needs. When they meet for the first time, he’s in sweats and one of his more casual jumpers. She greets him in a suit. Despite the situation, he feels terribly underdressed. The quick introductory session they have isn’t off to a wonderful start.

Her office is painted a stained coffee colour, something one would try desperately to get out of a favourite pair of trousers as they’re already rushing into work late. To anyone else it must be calming. To John it’s another irritation. He does well enough to hide his displeasure, he hopes. The furniture matches the earthy tone theme. She has a desk by the side with bookcases behind her. They’re minimalistic, orderly, precise. John does precise. There’s a sofa by the window she has facing out in the courtyard he’s visited all of once. In the center of the room are two chairs, identical . Next to either of them is a side table; one has a clipboard and coffee, the other has water.

Beneath them is a plush rug. It looks soft, anyway. Grainy, actually, the longer he looks at it. It shifts, John blinks, and no, he’s not in that office anymore. The sun is beating down on him, burning, marring his skin with its blaze. His mouth is dry and his shoulders are heavy. But he steps forward onto that carpet and it’s no longer plush. It shifts beneath him, John sinks until his weight is settled and he can move another lead leg forward. But the sand doesn’t stop, keeps shifting and sliding and swallowing his leg. He looks down where he’s disappearing, beyond the heavy metal in his hands and at the camouflaged cloth blending into the earth. He is falling, no—he’s being pulled under. There’s a harsh wind that throws sand in his eyes and mouth, lodging into his gums and beneath his eyelids and John cannot stop watching as he is drowning in the heat and course sand and metal in his shoulder.

“Dr. Watson?”

Being pulled out of a flashback isn’t like being ripped and rag dolled from it like the movies make it out to be. It’s numbing, everything in John’s body is without feeling for a few seconds before he can register that, yes, he is in the office with Ella and what he’s standing on is a carpet. She is looking at him not with sympathy as the other nurses have, but concern. John shouldn’t find it annoying, that’s what he’s here for is to be concerned about. He hates that he needs the treatment as it is. Reminders only agitate him.

He’s already exhausted.

“Why don’t you take a seat, I just need to grab a pen.”

John nods once and looks over to the chair he’s supposed to be sitting in. The carpet is still, unassuming and definitely not dangerous. His heart is calming, at least. John flexes his hand and grips his cane with the other before settling in the chair, cane tucked between the arm of it and the side table. He decides to have water. It hasn’t ever tasted as appealing as it does just then.

“So, Dr. Watson—”

“’John’, please.”

“Alright. John.” Ella takes her seat and crosses one leg over the other, clipboard on her knee. John catches a glimpse of typed notes with plenty of blank spaces for written observations. What she hopes to collect in the first meeting is beyond him. She knows why he’s there. “I understand you’ve been experiencing some of the more difficult symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.” She pauses. John feels as if it’s intentional to give him a chance to speak. Muttering confirmation seems redundant.

“Yes,” is all he offers.

“Your file says you’ve had hallucinations, nightmares. Oftentimes vivid ones. Flashbacks of your time in Afghanistan?”

John feels the need to pull his feet from the carpet and settle them elsewhere. “Yes.”

“And did you experience one when you walked in?”

Ella is good. Of course she is, it’s her job. John wasn’t aware they were obvious to anyone else. He considers her for a moment, eyes unreadable and hand clinching shut twice before he replies with, “Yes.”

“What triggered it?”

John doesn’t want to admit her carpet did it. Who the fuck can’t handle a hideously tan carpet? He can walk all over it and it can’t do a damn thing to him, just take the abuse his shoes give it and the dirt he tracks in and learn to deal with it. Only it’s not dealing with it. It’s an inanimate object. And John ‘s mind so helpfully supplies him with the harsh reminder that he doesn’t even get to walk all over it. He limps on it. He’d rather be back in the stark white and tile room the group meetings are held.

“It just… happens, sometimes. Out of the blue.” John is certain she knows he’s lying, but she doesn’t give any indication of it. He watches her as she jots down some notes, clipboard tilted just enough to keep him from reading anything.

“Tell me, John, what have you heard from the other patients about the way a typical therapy session is conducted?” It’s not a question he expects to hear, nor one he can provide a clear answer for. He hasn’t heard anything. He hasn’t been listening. And his medical training was of an entirely different sort.

“Uh, I assumed I’d come in and talk and, well, you’d find some solution, advise me.” He lets his hands fall in his lap and clasps them together, thumb of one rubbing the tendons of the other. His eyes stay focused on hers and he sits completely still, straight and against the back of the chair. One foot slides closer to his chair, edging the leg to remind him that he’s on steady ground. She doesn’t speak. “Tell me how to stop seeing things that aren’t there.”

“You’re half right,” she starts, attention back on the clipboard for a moment. She speaks as she writes. “I’m here to help guide you. While you talk, I’ll try to get to the root of your problem and help you see it for yourself—”

“The ‘root of my problem’ is _Afghanistan_ ,” he interrupts her and regrets it immediately, pursing his lips. He’s unable to meet her eyes when she sits back and looks at him. She doesn’t look angry, much to his surprise. John likes to think he’s maintaining his walls. He can’t bring himself to apologize quite yet in case he continues to spew months of repression all at once. He can’t handle that right now.

She doesn’t let the silence sit too long. “Coping after warfare is difficult for anyone. You’ve pushed yourself fighting for your country, and now you’ll have to push yourself to readjust to civilian life. It’s not easy, and oftentimes you may feel as if you’re fighting your own war. But our goal isn’t to eradicate your problems. It’s to help you find ways to manage them safely and efficiently. I can’t tell you how to fix it, there isn’t a twelve-step process to this sort of thing. It’s going to take time. We’re going to have to work _together_.”

She’s right, John knows she’s right. But he’s not ready to talk about it. Talking is difficult.

The rest of the session is rushed and before long John is back in his room. He skips dinner in favour of sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trouble fitting in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About the mention that the fallen soldier's dog tags are kicked in between his teeth: there's a rumour (an American one at least, I don't know about anywhere else) that the notch they used to put on the tags was to make it easy to mark the fallen soldiers out on the field and keep their identity intact when someone goes to collect the body later. It's there to make a certain machine function, but that's not as much fun.

John dreams. It’s one he’s suffered from for months now: more heat, more sand, dry and tired and weighed down. His uniform feels right on him, tailored to fit the body and position he’s worked hard to achieve. But he’s worn and weak now, unable to hold himself upright. His back bends beneath the pressure and his feet shuffle forward as he trudges through. He’s buried up to his knees in sand. It feels thick as marsh water he was subjected to during training. It ebbs and flows as water does, too, swirling around his legs. It’s dry as bone, the metal of the gun in his hand is scalding hot. His fingers itch to pull the trigger and unload rounds on whatever unsuspecting victim happens upon him.

It isn’t right. He was trained to defend and heal, not to hunt and kill. But his tongue craves the metallic taste of blood. He feels something brush his leg and doesn’t hesitate to shoot. The semi-automatic is silent, as is the rest of his subconscious. He doesn’t hear the rounds, the waves of sand, the click of his tongue as he fruitlessly tries to wet his chapped lips. His eyes focus on the spot he assaulted, waiting for the successful hit to rise from the grains.

The sudden hush of moving sand grates on his ears, far too sensitive after being denied their use for the entirety of the dream thus far. He watches it fall in sheets as a body bobs up and rocks with the motion. It suddenly moves and the uniform is similar to John’s. There are bullet holes burned in the back , fabric stained black and red around the torn edges. Torn muscle is exposed and John begins to analyze the wound from where he stands and mentally walks himself through the process of fixing the wound.

The figure stands before he finishes and turns, sand still pouring from crevices and folds and equipment. The sniper rifle hooked over the figure’s shoulder is intact, his hands are calloused as he clenches his hands. John finally has a look at the familiar face, scarred over the eye and across the jaw from infiltration operations and a period of torture from an enemy prisoner of war camp. His tags are lodged between his two front teeth, forcibly kicked between them, a nod at the rumours of wars before. Blood drips down the metal and into the sand and dirty blond hair is matted with sweat and more blood.

Searing pain shoots through his shoulder.

John is swallowed into the sand.

A gunshot outside his room is what jolts him awake. John is disoriented as he frantically searches for the gun under his pillow. His hands don’t meet cold metal and the panic sets deeper in his chest.

He sits up and looks around the bare room, searching for anything he can use as a weapon. There’s nothing small or sharp enough, but he settles for his lamp. He has the cord wrapped partly around  his fingers and the base of the lamp in the other and he takes cautious steps to his door. It doesn’t lock from the inside and the little window allows him to peer out at what appears to be an empty hall. His heart is hammering in his chest and he feels just as hot now as he did in his dream. The doorknob is cold on his fingertips as he slowly turns clicks it open. It’s too loud, but he chances a glance around the edge of the doorway.

A nurse is picking up something broken, something bit and metal. A part to a piece of equipment of some sort. Not a weapon. Not a gunshot.

John lowers the lamp and sighs, leaning heavily against the doorway. The nurse looks up and nods, greeting him a good morning before hurrying off down the hall muttering about the trouble she’ll be in or whatever.

Day five is stressful.

He sees a psychiatrist on day six. They go over much of the same stuff he went over with Ella. Most of it is review of his earlier session with her along with a couple of questions about changes John may have experienced since then. It’s all the same stuff. His blood is drawn and sent off to their lab for testing and his session is much more in depth and invasive. John tries not to think about it and is cooperative, offering any and all information he can.

Doctor Sawyer is kind, gentler than Ella but professional all the same. She insists they go by a first name basis. They finish up early after John’s hit a wall and decides he’d rather wait before talking about his suicide attempt any further. So they talk about their uni days in the time they have left. Sarah’s a few years younger and attended medical school the year after John graduated. John forgets he’s in a psych ward until their session is over and he heads to the cafeteria for lunch.

On day ten, John attacks a patient.

Looking back, he knows he could’ve handled it better. It was one of the few times he’s tried to immerse himself in a commons area, though what he ended up doing was finding something else to occupy him and avoid contact. He needed the background noise of shuffling feet and murmuring to keep him sane. What he didn’t consider were some of the louder patients. There’s one in particular, Mr. Anderson, who hasn’t yet figured out how to keep his thoughts to himself. John doesn’t want to know what his condition is. Don’t want to know anyone’s. Getting close to other patients isn’t something he’s comfortable doing.

Mr. Anderson – Phil, he finds out later, but everyone calls him Anderson anyway – makes rounds with the patients. John’s never paid him mind before but he can’t help but overhear several proclamations involving some mad detective with a funny name. “The best in the business!” Anderson exclaims to a patient who is clearly not interested. But he moves on to another person and continues. “Oh, but he’s a right _bastard_. Thinks he’s better than the lot of us because he can _read_ your _mind_.”

John has reread the same paragraph three times. _Wuthering Heights_ really is shit.

He hears footsteps coming toward him and prays they bypass him to head toward another unlucky victim. But John’s never been so lucky. Anderson pulls a chair from a nearby table and stays on the other side of the small coffee table between the two of them, turning the chair and straddling it, leaning against the back with his arms stretched before him and head lolled to the side. John doesn’t look at him, but he feels eyes on him. His skin crawls.

“Newbie.” Anderson’s voice is much quieter in comparison to just a moment before. It’s entirely unexpected. John almost jumps in his seat. “What are you here for?”

Nosy fuck. “Tried to off myself.” John is blunt with his response in the hopes that it’ll get Anderson to leave him alone. “Pills. Couldn’t do it. Trying not to.” He’s still looking at his book, but he’s not really reading.

“You haven’t turned a page in five minutes.”

Fucking—“Boring book.”

“What’s it feel like? Afghanistan.”

John briefly considers leaving but that means Anderson wins. He can’t let Anderson win. His jaw tenses. “Hot.”

“Well _duh_!” Anderson’s face contorts into a look of sheer offense, as if his intelligence is being put into question. It is, of course. Man can’t handle sarcasm. Or take a hint. Then his face is inquisitive again, eyes wide with wonder. “I’m talking about the _war._ ”

John doesn’t give him an answer.

_“Doctor Watson._ ”

The emphasis on everything is grating on John’s nerves. Add that to the list of things that piss him off.

“What’s it feel like to kill a man?”

Pain. The first thing John registers is pain. In his shoulder, in his leg, in the spots he’s shot other people to protect himself and his men. They’re dull, aching, and he feels them one at a time in rapid succession. It only fuels his anger.

“Bet it feels _good_.” He has no idea what he’s talking about, John reminds himself. “Bet you get off on it, you lot, in your fancy uniforms and special gear. Is it the heat that drives you mad? Or is it your thirst for _blood_?”

John’s hand flexes. He’s three seconds away from knocking the teeth out of Anderson’s creepy fucking grin.

“Sherlock could figure it out.”

There’s the funny name. John thinks to ask but that means dealing with Anderson longer than is necessary. Then again, they passed that the moment Anderson sat down with him. He continues to try to ignore him.

“Sherlock _always_ figures it out. _Consulting Detective_. ‘The only one in the world,’ he says.” Anderson scoffs. “Stupid title. But the Yard insists on keeping him close. They’re his bitch. Fucking coke addict.”

Charming.

Anderson squints his eyes and his voice is hushed, body leaning further forward to try and invade John’s personal space. “He can tell you your entire life story the moment he lays his eyes on you. He can tell you’re a _murderer_.”

John drops the books and lunges forward to deck the snarky look off of Anderson’s face. He doesn’t remember much after that. There’s more yelling, some patients are encouraging the fight. It’s not much of a fight; John has a dangerous advantage. But he manages to keep from killing him which is an accomplishment.

He’s tranquilized . The last thing he sees is a swarm of nurses and doctors drugging them both before he blacks out.


End file.
